


Wolves of Winter

by Servena



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Reunions, Snow, The Eyrie, Winter, post Red Wedding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2019-02-01 12:36:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12705117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Servena/pseuds/Servena
Summary: “Lady?” she whispered. A desperate yearning rose in her chest. But in the same instant she knew she was wrong.





	Wolves of Winter

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sommerchallenge 2017.

Winter is coming. Those were the words of the Starks, the ones she had learned growing up, reciting them along with those of the other great houses. Whenever she thought about it, she could hear it in her father’s voice, along with Old Nan’s words, “Oh my sweet summer child…” It was a warning of the cold and dark to come after the time of the long summer. But winter wasn’t coming anymore. It was here.

The snow was falling in thick, white flakes, muffling the sounds of the world around her. They landed in her red hair and slowly melted on her woollen cloak. Her clothes had begun to soak through where she was kneeling on the ground, but she barely felt it. A pair of gloves lay discarded next to her in the snow. Everything around her was white. When she looked up, she could barely make out the top of the walls surrounding the courtyard. There were no guards patrolling them. No man could reach the Eyrie in a weather like this.

Her fingers had begun to sting and go numb from the cold. Yet from the piles of snow surrounding her, she built. Her hands shaped towers and raised walls and formed bridges. In front of her mind’s eye, she saw Winterfell as clearly as the day she left it (so stupid, such a stupid girl). No one would destroy it this time. There was no one here but her.

Until now.

Afterwards, she didn’t remember hearing anything. Yet as she looked up from her work on the broken tower (Bran’s tower, the one he fell from, her brother, one of her dead brothers), she knew she was no longer alone. A dark shape moved through the curtain of snow. It circled her, slowly getting closer. The hairs at the back of her neck rose up, but she didn’t scream, she didn’t yell for anybody. Now she could hear snow crunching under big paws, the sound of heavy breathing. With each step closer the shape grew taller and clearer, until she could see the clouds of breath rising up from the muzzle into the winter air. Grey fur was stained with dark blood which had frozen in the cold, but the yellow eyes were clear and focussed.

“Lady?” she whispered. A desperate yearning rose in her chest. But in the same instant she knew she was wrong. “Grey Wind.” They killed you, she wanted to say. They put you full of arrows and cut of your head and sewed it onto my brother’s body. But it was all lies, she realized, lies to torture her.

They were so big now. It had been such a long time since she had seen a direwolf, it seemed like a lifetime ago. Would Lady have been this big now as well? Summer had killed a man when he was half this size and Grey Wind had killed many more in battle, yet she was not afraid. She leaned forward and put her arms around the wolf’s neck, pressing her face into the fur the way she did with Lady such a long time ago. For the first time in years she felt well and truly safe.


End file.
